Father John Misty, “I Love You, Honeybear” But they’ve managed to toughen things up without losing the bittersweet charm of those earlier efforts, thanks in large part to the vocals of Bethany Cosentino, who wears her heartache like a faded Go-Go's T-shirt on the album’s most infectious tracks, from “Jealousy” to the vulnerable “Sleep Won’t Ever Come.” 14. They’ve beefed up their sound in the five years separating “California Nights” from the sun-kissed pop of “Boyfriend” and “Our Deal.” From the shimmering waves of guitar on the opener, “Feeling OK,” to the chugging post-Ramones guitars of “Heaven Sent,” they’ve arrived at a sound that’s much closer in spirit to ‘70s power-pop filtered through ‘90s commercial-alternative.

So hopefully you’re over being burned out on year-end lists and you can take one more, which admittedly includes a number of the names you’ve been reading since early October or whenever the earliest “end-of-the-year” lists were published.īut hey, it’s late enough. But really, it’s because I was too busy writing other stuff.Īnd I’ve been doing album-of-the-year lists since the ’90s so I couldn’t let it go just because there were more pressing deadlines to meet. I could pretend I meant to do that, just so it could be the last Best-Albums-of-2015 list you’ll ever need to read. “Isn’t it a little late for that?” a friend asked Wednesday when I told him I still planned to do an albums-of-the-year list.

Kendrick lamar albums list